UPDATE: 2:22 pm The Board of Governors passed the plan that makes block tuition a possibility for every student attending a Florida university.
KnightNews.com’s Kevin Wolkenfeld attended the meeting in Gainesville and interviewed Chancellor Frank Brogan about why there was no public comment received by the Board of Governors on such a major change in policy. We also asked him about what steps the board took to get student government to be aware of the opportunity to speak out and provide public comment on this issue.
We’ll post the video interview as soon as we can.
10pm Wed update SGA President Mike Kilbride is against adopting block tuition at UCF, according to an SGA statement KnightNews.com was sent at 9:21 p.m. tonight.
Read the proposal stating “no public comments were received” regarding this issue
“The Student Government Team has been working with our colleagues across the state to advocate against block tuition policies. From our discussions it has become clear that block tuition is not in the best interest of the students of the State University System,” the statement continued.
Kilbride’s stance against imposing block tuition in the State University System conflicts with that of the UCF Administration, which supports the plan which would allow each university the option of implementing Block Tuition, with the BOG’s approval. Although UCF aggressively pushed for block tuition at UCF just a few years ago, UCF administrators now insist they have no plans to impose it at UCF, should the BOG approve the plan which would give them the option.
KnightNews.com is working on possibly sending a crew to Gainesville to cover this major change to how students pay for college.
ORIGINAL STORY: As the state focused its attention on heated election battles, the Florida Board of Governors has quietly renewed its focus on passing a plan to grant universities across the state the power to charge students for classes they’re not even taking. It’s on the agenda for the State University System’s governing body’s meeting at UF on Thursday.
The plan is called Block Tuition, and even though a UCF spokesman told KnightNews.com “UCF has no plans to adopt block tuition should the proposal be approved,” KnightNews.com has learned imposing Block Tuition is something UCF expressed very strong interest in doing back in 2004 — at a time when President John Hitt was also in power.
According to 2004 UCF BOT minutes, “Trustee Ferris … reported that the Board of Governors asked the universities interested in implementing block tuition to submit proposals by September 1, 2004.”
At the time, UCF submitted a proposal, meaning it was one of the Universities interested in implementing the plan. UCF’s plan called for students enrolled for twelve or more credit hours to pay a fixed tuition equal to that required for fifteen credit hours, according to the minutes.
Six years later, supporters of Block Tuition have changed their strategy to push for its approval. This time, even though so many universities seemed to express interest in the past, it appears only the University of Florida is declaring its desire to impose Block Tuition on students, which would amount to a de facto tuition hike for many who can only afford to take 12 credit hours while working through college.
Just yesterday, UF’s Independent Florida Alligator newspaper reported, “UF spokesman Steve Orlando said UF is the only university in Florida pushing for block tuition, a measure that has already proven unpopular with some students.”
UF — which is considered by many in Florida politics as the state’s flagship University, and thus more entitled to special policies to generate more money — released a statement in September suggesting it only wanted to try out the program.
“To clarify further, this would be a pilot program only for the University of Florida, and would be optional for the other 10 state universities,” the UF statement read. The statement ignores the fact that several universities pushed aggressively for Block Tuition to be passed a little more than five years ago, suggesting administrations across the state have already studied the concept and know how it would apply to their schools.
In an earlier interview, KnightNews.com pushed UCF on the issue by asking whether UCF would be under pressure to adopt Block Tuition down the road in order to stay competitive with other state schools that do. UCF Spokesman Grant Heston responded, “We believe our decision not to adopt block tuition at this time is in the best interests of UCF.”
We also asked if UCF opposes the passage of the plan.
“UCF has no plans to adopt block tuition at this time, should the proposal be approved by the Board of Governors,” Heston said. “We do not oppose the proposal, as it offers universities the option of using block tuition. Each institution is free to make its own decision on how best to proceed.”
Students at UCF are worried it’s only a matter of time before the Block Tuition is imposed on them. One even made a Facebook group about it called “Block Tuition Sucks.”
The description states: “If you want to pay for more classes than you’re taking, then good for you!! But if not, then this group is for you! If you oppose block tuition because you don’t have money to be throwing away every semester, then this group is for you too!!”
KnightNews.com has not received any press releases either in support or in opposition of Block Tuition from SGA President Mike Kilbride’s administration or the lobbyists he hired to represent students on state matters such as this one, including the Florida Student Association and Gray Robinson. Gray Robinson also lobbies for the UCF administration.
KnightNews.com will work to get comments from all of those groups and update the story later.
